There are many ways to "arrangiarsi"
or "get by" in this part of the world. In the film Cafè
Express (1980, dir. Nanni Loy) with Nino Manfredi,
the main character wanders the corridors of an express
train selling coffee illegally. He prepares the coffee
at home, puts on his homemade uniform, gets on the train
and goes to work, always staying a step ahead of the
conductor. Much Neapolitan humor deals with this figure
of the 'survivor,' the one who will do anything to make
a living. Wait. Not anything. The true Neapolitan
survivor will not steal. That is undignified and carries
no honor or sense of achievement with it. The real
'survivor' offers a service or a product. Those who
offer, perhaps a bit forcefully at times, to wash the
windshield of your car while you're stopped in traffic
are an example, as are the vendors of paper
handkerchiefs and cigarettes. They are at the bottom of
the list in terms of creativity, however.

A better example
would be Massimo Colatosti, who may have been be the
only person in the world to wish for monster traffic
jams every morning when he awakened, and who had a very
good job until cell phones became so common. Massimo
wandered from car to car offering cell phone service to
those who were stuck in traffic and who needed to make a
call. Apparently, he was a gentleman and didn't charge
if the caller was ill and had to make an emergency call.
On the other hand, if it was just young lovers who
wanted to whisper sweet nothings, Massimo charged them
sweet somethings. He charged men more than he charged
women. The true survivor is nothing if not
chivalrous.

There is another
kind of job that is necessary —but shouldn't be. It's
not a street corner job, either. There are respectable
little offices called "agencies". The sign in the window
tells you they take care of driving licenses, birth
certificates, residence papers, this document, that
paper, etc. If, for example, you need a document to
attest to the fact that you have no criminal record, you
can go in there, pay some money and come back a few days
later to find your papers all in order and waiting for
you. But, you say, couldn't you do that yourself just by
going to the appropriate office at the City Hall?
Yes —if you want to stand in line. If you wander into
the city hall or police station or hall of records
looking for just the right wayward scrap of paper with
your name on it —well, you can kiss the whole day
good-bye. The bureaucracy in Naples is Byzantine;
indeed, the Greeks invented Catch-22 (You can't do A
before you do B; but in order to do B, you have to show
that you have done A). Pythagoras, himself, is said to
have been trying to prove that there was a number
between 21 and 23. Maybe the Neapolitan version has to
do with the still proud attachment that Naples has to
its Greek roots and traditions, or maybe it's just that
everyone needs a job. This is one more way to "get by".
You are essentially paying an outrageous amount of money
to "queue standers". That's all they do. They put in the
time so you don't have to.

They make a good
living, too. I understand that it is even a profession
passed on from father to son, just as were the noble
trades of yesteryear: the silversmith, the carpenter,
the luthier—and, now, the guy who waits in line. "Yes,
my boy," says Father (sweeping his arm out in a grand
gesture to show his son the 432 people in front of them
in the queue), "some day, all this will be yours."